Life Outside the Box: An Interview with Ashley Brooks

Walking Away from What Comes Naturally, Looking at God in a Different Light, and Hundreds of Small, Daily Joys

Nov 01, 2024

Welcome to all new readers! This is the ninth interview in a series where we celebrate the intentional choice to live as whole persons and not just one-dimensional job titles.

The overwhelmingly positive response to my essay, Leaning (In and) Out, (Not) Having it All, suggested to me that there are a lot of women (and men) who are keen to set aside the societal pressure to hustle hard and put all their energies and decades of life exclusively into one single career box.

This series offers interviews with those who have chosen a life outside the box, in a variety of ways. It’s my hope that in getting to peek into the lives of others, we’ll all be inspired to step outside the pressure chambers we may feel stuck in - even if our lives are very different in practice from those shared here.

Encouragement, permission, examples - I hope whatever it is you need to step outside the box, you’ll find it here.

Today I’m welcoming

Ashley Brooks

, the writer behind Let It Go on Substack.

You may recognise Ashley from last week’s post, Learning from Other’s Discernment. I was so struck by her story that I asked her for an interview, which she kindly agreed to. Here, she’s sharing more about her life and work - wife, mother, Chief Strategy Officer (among other titles!) of a family business, student of spiritual direction, church committee & small group member, knitter and reader. It was a real treat to get to peek behind the curtain to see how she creatively navigates these different elements of her life outside the box!

(1) What does your life outside the box currently look like? Tell us about a day/ week in your life.

What started as my outside-the-box life has admittedly become more common in recent years. I’m a part-time work-at-home mom to four kids between the ages of ten and three, and I’m also a graduate student studying Christian Spirituality with an emphasis on Spiritual Direction. My current job is working as something of a jack-of-all-trades in my husband’s brick and mortar business. I serve as CSO (chief strategy officer), marketing specialist, bookkeeper, and the HR department. It’s a small company with ten employees, but all those jobs that happen at large corporations still need to get done on a smaller scale to keep things running smoothly.

Every day is a little bit different, but there’s a lot more consistency around here lately now that my youngest is in part-time preschool. My kids have an early bus time that has us up and moving well before the sun is up. My husband leaves for work around the same time the kids walk out the door, so it’s about 45 minutes of chaos while everyone gets what they need for the day. After seeing everyone off to school, I come home and get myself ready and then take about thirty minutes for myself. Some days I make a hearty breakfast, others I’ll take the dog for a walk or spend some time in contemplative prayer.

After that, the morning varies depending on what’s on the docket that day. Twice a week I’ll go to a local strength training class with a delightful group of women, which serves as the best mood booster and built-in community. On the other days, I’ll go into the shop to either get some admin work done or have strategy meetings with my husband and our project manager, or I’ll run errands and get some homework done. My youngest is only in school for half-days, so after picking her up, we’ll grab lunch and transition into afternoon quiet time (a nap for her, homework or household admin/chores for me).

Quiet time is decidedly over when the bus drops off the big kids! I try to have a huge snack ready for them with plenty of protein, as well as calm instrumental music playing. Several of my kids are neurodivergent and highly sensitive—and I am too. There are often some really big emotions to handle right after school. Occasionally I’ll need to take kids to an appointment or support service, but we don’t do any structured after-school activities yet. I know our slow afternoons will come to an end eventually, but I’m holding onto them for as long as I can!

If the weather is nice, the kids will generally find some neighborhood friends outside and disappear until dinnertime. If it’s not, the older ones will help out with dinner. Once a week I also have online class during dinner hour, so I’ll make something ahead that can be baked and my older kids will pop it in the oven at the right time. They’re generally pretty good about entertaining themselves for the first half of my class until my husband gets home and takes over.

After dinner, it’s the usual rush of cleaning up and bedtime routines. Our two older kids stay up a bit later, so I might watch an episode of Gilmore Girls with them after the younger ones go to sleep, or we might work through a read-aloud of a middle-grade novel (our current selection is The Mysterious Benedict Society). Of course, that’s only if we’re all home. I’m on several church committees and am part of a church small group, and my husband serves on a city commission. If one of us has a meeting and the other is solo parenting through bedtime, the kids are much more on their own in getting ready for bed.

My husband and I should theoretically be off-duty from parenting by 8 p.m. or so. We’ll chat and catch up on our days—we try not to talk about work in the evenings, but sometimes it’s difficult when we’re sharing stories about what we did all day! Late evenings are also prime time for my two favorite hobbies, knitting and reading.

(2) How did you get there? What intentional choices did you make?

Honestly, if Kerri had asked me to do this “day in the life” two months ago, it would have looked completely different. There would have been almost no downtime. I wouldn’t have been as intentional about tending to my kids’ emotional and sensory needs. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have said yes to writing about all of this!

That’s because up until August, I had a second part-time job as a freelance editor. I wrote more on my own Substack about what it was like having that career, a business I began as soon as I graduated college and got married almost thirteen years ago. The gist is that it started out as a godsend, but as we added more and more kids to our family, it started taking its toll. That career no longer fit our needs.

It's hard to explain exactly how I reached this decision. It took six years of discernment, and I don’t know if I ever would have had the confidence to make this change without being in spiritual direction myself. That was the real impetus to start looking at God in a different light, which led to reevaluating my own life.

I was raised (and still am!) Roman Catholic, but like many Christians in the United States, the flavor of my faith was heavily influenced by Evangelical Protestantism growing up. Although I don’t think I could have put a name to it at the time, I believed all sorts of things about God that I now disagree with: harshness, judgment, that God loves us but doesn’t like us. Embracing the more feminine attributes of God, especially the female personification of Wisdom, has been incredibly helpful in stretching my theological perspective and leading me deeper into the discernment process with a God I can actually trust.

Being in spiritual direction led me to Ignatian spirituality, a contemplative type of prayer that includes specific methods and guidelines for discernment. This is what led me to follow the call to grad school, where I encountered many professors, books, and peers whom God used to speak the truth I needed to hear. Grad school has been transformative for me; it’s probably the biggest intentional choice that led to all the other dominoes falling.

(3) What are you intentionally choosing to say “yes” and (maybe more importantly!) “no” to in this season of your life?

The thing is, I could have kept editing in a way that was sustainable for my mental health and our family . . . but I would have had to say no to grad school and working in my husband’s business—and in some ways, to our kids. As I said above, grad school has changed everything for me. Saying no to that just wasn’t an option. Obviously you can’t say no to a child once you’ve already said yes to having them (though in a way, that’s what I was trying to do by balancing too many things at once). So that left the family business.

For several years after my husband took over his family business, I tried to make that the thing I said no to. We initially hired someone else to do some of the duties I’m now responsible for. I sort of helped out, but I mostly didn’t have time for it. It was just another thing to squeeze into a too-full life, and I was resentful of it. I was convinced that his business was supposed to be my “no.”

It took a silent retreat and a candid conversation with a trusted priest for me to finally recognize how much my pride was coming into play. I didn’t want to work for my husband. I wanted to continue running my own business. I hated the thought of people mistakenly thinking I was his secretary. It was pride and stubbornness at its worst.

Ignatian discernment means being open to the movement of the Spirit and noticing consolation and desolation in your daily life. These are the signposts that say, “Hey, go this way” or “Nope, road closed, turn around!” Consolation is a feeling of contentment, peace, or joy. It’s deeper than simple happiness; it’s a feeling that can only come from God. Desolation is a negative feeling; there might be despair, pain, or feeling like God just isn’t there. It’s not that consolation always means “go this way” and desolation always says “turn around”—it’s far more nuanced than that—but noticing where these movements are happening in your daily life is important.

Once I started doing that, bringing those moments of consolation and desolation forward and acknowledging them, it was so clear that editing was not bearing any good fruit. There was no joy or enjoyment. It didn’t fill me up. In fact, it was such a drain on my energy that it left almost nothing for myself, my family, or my friends. After many years of using those discernment tools and seeking silence last summer, God finally broke through my pride and showed me that editing needed to become the thing I said no to.

Because of that no, I now get to say yes to being more present for and patient with my kids, meeting friends for midday coffee dates, supporting my husband and working together as team, spending more time out in nature, and hundreds of other small, daily joys.

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(4) When you were a child/ younger, what vision did you have for your life? Did you always want to live outside the box, or did it come later? Was it a surprise to you?

Ironically, freelance editing was my dream job from about age twelve onward! Back then, very few people worked from home. I was a quiet kid with social anxiety and undiagnosed neurodivergence. Nothing sounded better to me than getting to work from my own comfortable home, with no glaring fluorescent lights or loud coworkers, reading books all day. I thought I had discovered the perfect out-of-the-box life for myself.

As an only child, I also knew that I wanted a big family. I thought kids would fit seamlessly into this life I had planned. Wouldn’t it be easy to work while your kids just played in the other room? One of the downsides of being an only child is that I had absolutely no concept of how much work kids are!

When I became a mother in my twenties, I still kept trying to shoehorn the freelance editing together with staying home with kids. It got harder and harder the more kids we had . . . but this was my dream, and I was afraid to deviate from it. I was letting a twelve-year-old dictate my adult life!

It’s only been a few years since I discovered that spiritual direction even existed. I don’t think I could ever have imagined this ministry path for myself. And I certainly wouldn’t have thought of doing all the high-level business tasks I’m taking on at work. Those are skills I learned early on in my freelance editing career when I was starting and growing my business. Editing was the right path for me for a time, but I’m glad I can close the door on that chapter and walk toward whatever is coming next.

(5) What dispositions/ attitudes/ skills helped you cultivate the life you have now?

First and foremost was my misguided theology. I genuinely thought that because God had answered my decade-old prayer to make editing work out, and because God had given me the skill of editing, that I had to keep doing it forever. Once I started believing that God cares about me as a person, not just a tool, everything changed. God doesn’t want us to be miserable! God wants us to live lives that allow for joy, delight, creativity, and the things we love. If I had known that sooner, I don’t think I would have stuck with editing for as long as I did. This movement toward a broader understanding of God was largely thanks to the perspectives of my professors and peers in grad school. Having classes that completely changed the way I read the Bible, learning alongside Buddhists and agnostics and Catholic priests and sisters . . . I can’t imagine a more beautiful way to expand my understanding of the mystical Divine.

As I touched on earlier, I also think that my skill as an editor hindered me in moving forward. I’m good at editing and had plenty of work from repeat clients. It’s scary to walk toward something unknown, especially when what you’re walking away from is something that comes naturally to you. It almost felt like, “Well if I weren’t supposed to be doing this, then why am I so good at it?” But it’s not just about what you’re good at; it’s also about what you want! That was the missing piece for me.

(6) What dispositions/ attitudes/ skills helped you cultivate the life you have now?

I love learning and novelty, which makes my situation kind of perfect for my brain. I’m in school, my current work challenges me in a way editing never did, and no two days are alike as I stay flexible to meet my family’s changing needs. My love of learning, researching, and reading are ultimately what led me here (or what God used to lead me here).

I first learned about spiritual direction and discernment in books. From there, I was able to deep dive those topics until I had gone as far as I could on my own. That’s when I sought out a spiritual director to work with. The rest of the pieces fell into place with each step I took in the direction that aligned with my values.

(7) Where can people find you online?

I’m actively trying not to be a very online person these days. I usually check in on Instagram on the weekends, and when I’m there I try to contribute to a conversation (usually in Stories) rather than just consuming what shows up on the feed. You can request to follow me @ashleybrookswrites.

Here on Substack, I write Let It Go, which is about my practice of Ignatian spirituality in my daily life (plus a monthly book round-up).

» I so appreciated Ashley’s honesty in admitting what was actually holding her back! When she said, “I was letting a twelve-year-old dictate my adult life!” it made me wonder how many of us are letting stubborn, outdated dreams determine what we choose now. Things that are good and useful for a time may not be good and useful forever: that’s why discernment isn’t a one-and-done thing.

Now let’s discuss! Do you have childhood dreams that are still tugging on you? How are you discerning how much weight to give them? Have you ever found that pride is the thing holding you back from “hundreds of other small, daily joys”? How do you discern career and family changes? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Cultivating Clarity

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